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Spiritual successor
A spiritual successor, sometimes called a spiritual sequel, is a successor to a work of fiction which does not build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, yet features many of the same elements, themes, and styles as its source material, thereby resulting in it being related or similar "in spirit" to its predecessor. In literature In films and television The film 10 Cloverfield Lane was not originally scripted with any connection to Cloverfield. When the film was acquired by Bad Robot Productions, producer J. J. Abrams recognized a common element of a giant monster attack between the two films, and chose to market 10 Cloverfield Lane as a spiritual successor to Cloverfield to help bring interest to the newer film, and allowing him to establish a franchise he could build upon in future. In video games One example of a spiritual sequel resulting from legal issues is Dark Souls by From Software, inspired by Demon's Souls by the same studio. The rights for Demon's Souls, an exclusive title for the PlayStation 3, was held by Sony Computer Entertainment, preventing From Software from making a successor on other platforms, leading them to create a new property with similar gameplay mechanics for the Xbox 360 and other platforms. Another example is Perfect Dark, developed by Rare as a spiritual sequel to their licensed title GoldenEye 007. Rare had planned to develop a sequel to GoldenEye but lost the license as they were outbid by Electronic Arts. The developers still wanted to complete another spy-based title and developed Perfect Dark with a new story but with similar mechanics to GoldenEye. BioShock is one such example as a spiritual successor to System Shock 2. System Shock 2 was the first title developed by Irrational Games, a studio founded by Ken Levine, and while the game was met with critical acclaim, it was considered a commercial failure. Levine attempted to pitch a sequel to System Shock 2 but their publisher Electronic Arts declined due to poor sales of System Shock 2. After several years and other projects at Irrational, as well as being acquired by a new publisher 2K Games, Levine wanted to develop a game with the free-form narrative of System Shock 2, which ultimately became the game BioShock. Shadow of the Colossus was considered a spiritual successor to Ico by the lead director of both games Fumito Ueda; Ueda did not want to necessarily make the connection between the games one of a canonical narrative, but that both had similar narrative themes and elements that he wanted players to interpret on their own. A more recent example of a video game spiritual successor is the 2017 game Yooka-Laylee, which is considered a spiritual successor to the ''Banjo-Kazooie'' series. Yooka-Laylee was developed by Playtonic Games, which consists of former employees of Rare; the company that developed the games in the Banjo-Kazooie series. In other industries The Honda CR-Z is regarded as the spiritual successor to the second generation Honda CR-X in both name and exterior design, despite a nearly two decade time difference in production. The Toyota Fortuner SUV is a spiritual successor to the Toyota 4Runner SUV mainly because they both share the same platform as the Hilux pickup truck. The Canon Cat computer was Jef Raskin's spiritual successor to the Apple Macintosh. In sports In sports, the Ravens–Steelers rivalry is considered the spiritual successor to the older Browns–Steelers rivalry due to the Cleveland Browns relocation controversy as well as the "reactivated" Cleveland Browns having a 6-30 record against the Steelers since returning to the league in 1999.Greg Garber examines nasty Ravens-Steelers rivalry - ESPN See also * Informal sequel * Spin-off (media) * Gaiden * Digression References *Spiritual successor Sequel, spiritual Category:Film and video terminology Category:Game terminology